The Billionaires' Space Club

theodp writes Silicon sultans are the new robber barons, writes The Economist, adding that "they have been diversifying into businesses that have little to do with computers, while egotistically proclaiming that they alone can solve mankind's problems, from aging to space travel." Over at Slate, NYU journalism prof Charles Seife is less-than impressed with The Billionaires' Space Club. "It's an old trick," begins Seife. "Multimillionaires regularly try to spin acts of crass ego gratification as selfless philanthropy, no matter how obviously self-serving. They jump out of balloons at the edge of the atmosphere, take submarines to the bottom of the ocean, or shoot endangered animals on safari, all in the name of science and exploration. The more recent trend is billionaires making fleets of rocket ships for private space exploration. What makes this one different is that the public actually seems to buy the farce." Seife goes on to argue that "neither [Elon] Musk's nor [Richard] Branson's goals really seem to break new ground, despite all the talk of exploration."

Comments

Do I buy it?

[Runaway1956]

I'm well aware of fake "philanthropy". Some of the more respectable philanthropy even fails. Supposing that some billionaire actually funds the lab that finds the cure for cancer - he has bought and paid for his brand of immortality. The world doesn't need or want any more pyramids, so cancer will do the trick.

All the same - if enough people are competing to accomplish something is space, SOMEONE is going to succeed.

Yeah, I buy it. Hell, I'd work for little more than a pretty meager wage if I could be reasonably sure of ACCOMPLISHING something meaningful in space.

Re:Do I buy it?

[beelsebob]

What's especially weird about this article is that neither Branson nor Musk have ever said that their space ventures are anything other than a method of making them a bunch of profit...

Re:Do I buy it?

[the gnat]

neither Branson nor Musk have ever said that their space ventures are anything other than a method of making them a bunch of profit

Musk has repeatedly stated that he wants to retire on Mars, and making orbital launches affordable is a first step towards that. It sounds a little nutty, but I wish him the best of luck anyway. If he succeeds, we should all benefit in the long term; if he only makes a fool of himself, at least he's not doing it with my money.

Re:Do I buy it?

[FatLittleMonkey]

What's especially weird about this article is that neither Branson nor Musk have ever said that their space ventures are anything other than a method of making them a bunch of profit...

Nor have they "egotistically proclaim[ed] that they alone can solve mankind's problems, from aging to space travel." Nor "all the talk of exploration." Nor "shoot endangered animals on safari".

Seriously, the guy is nothing but a walking strawman.

There's plenty of things you can criticise the "PayPal mafia" and NewSpace over, especially Thiel and Branson respectively, but nothing that the Professor is going on about even comes close to a valid criticism. (Or even something that has anything to do with reality.) It's bizarre that someone would say it, but crazy that a major newspaper would actually publish it.

"The more recent trend is billionaires making fleets of rocket ships"

A) "recently", for something that's over a decade old, suggests that he's only just heard about it and because he only just heard about it, thinks it's new.

B) "fleets of rocket ships" is how a child would see it. Suggesting the guy is not only ignorant, but is surrounded by ignorant people.

"neither [Elon] Musk's nor [Richard] Branson's goals really seem to break new ground"

VG won't be doing anything special, (although even a private sub-orbital system is new; nothing like SS2 exists. X-15 with passengers and open space.)

But Musk already has the cheapest launcher on the market (perhaps ignoring a few micro-launchers), is about to develop fly-back first stage (something the industry has been wishing for since the early sixties), and is developing a private manned capsule, and is developing a heavy lift launcher that costs less than any other medium-lift launcher on the market even if they doesn't achieve reusability, and he's working with NASA to develop a Saturn V F1-class engine for a Saturn V class launcher, and he wants to go to Mars.

Not breaking new ground? What the fuck does this idiot want from them, a warp drive?

Re:Do I buy it?

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell do I care how the 1% of the 1% spend their money?

In a certain sense, I grew up poor in a rich (extended) family. Most of the other families in my neighborhood had motor boats and went water skiing in the summer. My family had a $150 canoe from K-mart. But I never went to bed hungry out of economic necessity. And when I got accepted to MIT, my family paid the full tuition.

But then I ended up living overseas and seeing first-hand levels of poverty and human suffering that will haunt me for the rest of my life. Before that, I didn't really understand poverty. Sure, growing up I heard about famines in Africa and urban decay in the inner cities. But it never really hit home that there were vast numbers of good innocent people who, through no fault of their own, were trapped in vicious soul destroying poverty. I wasn't a bad person but at a subconscious cultural level without really thinking about it I accepted that the world mostly a good and just place and that most people who were suffering in desperate poverty somehow deserved it: if they really didn't want to be poor then they could just "make some good choices" and stop being poor.

So why does it matter what rich people spend their money on? In the long term, an economy can increase it's productive capacity through scientific discovery and technological advances. In the very long term, we'll have technology that would allow most people in the world to live lives of comfort and leisure while robots do almost all of the work. But, in the short term, the economy has a limited productive capacity - that can either be used to produce frivolous luxury goods for rich people or to lift poor people out of poverty. And rich people control most of the economy. In a certain sense, I believe in the power of the human spirit. I believe that humanity can achieve incredible things - but only if it wants to. If the (rich) people who control the world's resources and economy mostly want frivolous luxury goods for themselves then that's what humanity will achieve. On other the other hand, if it were possible to wave a magic wand and make all the world's rich people truly care about lifting poor people out of poverty then poverty could be eradicated from the world in a single generation.

Mostly rich people really don't understand poverty because it's so far outside their own life experience but many of them have also not thought carefully about whether the purpose of life is to do as much as they can for themselves or do do as much as they can for others (and many naively pretend that the two are exactly equivalent).

What the hell is this guy smoking

[Spy Handler]

not gonna bother clicking any of the links. This guy is either incredibly ignorant and been living under a rock for the past few years, or his 401k is heavily vested in defense contractors. SpaceX is shaking the space launch industry to the very foundations and turning everything upside down. SpaceX is already cheaper than them (by a lot), but if the R program succeeds (we'll know in a few days), basically Elon will wipe out ULA and Ariannespace and there will be nothing left of them except for a few crumbs thrown at them by their buddies in government.

Someone's mad

[Anonymous Coward]

You can practically feel the envy radiating off him. "You can't be rich and a good person too, that's not fair!"

Re:What's with the "robber" nonsense?

[catchblue22]

What are "robber barons" anyways? John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil is an excellent example of one. He gained an early lead in the oil industry. Then he used some rather extreme tactics to preserve his lead, none of which benefited consumers. For one, he bought up rail lines surrounding his competitors, and used this ownership to deny his competitors the ability to transport their oil. Those competitors responded by packing their oil in barrels which could then be loaded onto multiple means of conveyance (i.e. trucks). This is why oil is still measured in "barrels". Rockefeller responded by attempting to control the market on the compound that was used to seal the barrels from leaking. The government eventually responded by breaking up Standard Oil into many different companies.

The above doesn't sound like Space X under Elon Musk. Space X is the plucky newcomer disrupting the existing American launch contractor United Launch Alliance (ULA) and its cosy relationship with the US military. If anything, ULA, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing fall under the moniker of "Robber Baron". This writer sounds like a troll acting in the best interests of the decaying American launch industry.

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[Lotana]

What's so special about our particular DNA configuration that we would have to preserve it at huge costs ?

We are the only living organism in the known Universe that possess such a high level of intelligence. Until we discover another species that can plan thier survival on interstellar basis, we are special and worth preserving.